Cat leaves bag: PSJailbreak cloned, released, freely available

Bad news for Sony: the PSJailbreak code has been released into the wild, and …

The PSJailbreak hardware may be held up by the Australian courts, but to the surprise of no one, the code behind the project has been reverse-engineered and is now freely available online. You'll need the code, a PlayStation 3, and a USB microcontroller in order to open your system. Oddly enough, sales of such devices seem to be in the middle of a spike.

As of this writing, the ability to play backed-up or copied games has been disabled in the code, but that won't last long. The genie is completely out of the bottle, and now that the code is floating around the expected sites, Sony has few options to stop its dissemination.

Once the PlayStation 3 was hacked it was only a matter of time before the software was made available free of charge; there are simply too many risks involved with selling this sort of thing via a standard storefront, and too many people more interested in the software's spread than profit. We have not tried the hack ourselves—and likely never will—so tread very carefully when downloading code from the Internet and using it to attempt to crack your PlayStation 3. There are some very technical details available on how exactly the exploit works if you've ever wondered how the hackers made an end run around Sony's safeguards.

Some smart people have already restored the ability to run backup games.

Well, "disabling" the ability to backup and run games from the hard drive was notional at best. It existed simply as a fig leaf so they can claim it's not about piracy, knowing that re-enabling would be trivial.

In hindsight disabling the other OS options in fear of piracy basically blew up in their face. I don't condone piracy at all, but I wonder if Sony's best bet now is to embrace the PS3 as an "open Computer." Charge royalties for official software but also foster a "ground up" homebrew community ala Indie Games and the like, but more general PC oriented. I think this may be their, and MS's, biggest mistake: not leveraging the vast resources, skill, and ingenuity of the homebrew crowd.

In hindsight disabling the other OS options in fear of piracy basically blew up in their face.

It was my understanding that one of the major reasons to include the Other OS option in the first place was to get around an EU tax liability on home entertainment equipment. Basically, the PS3 was considered a PC with the Other OS option in the EU and therefore, not subject to a large tax on home entertainment equipment. Once the EU court ruled that the PS3 was not considered a PC regardless of the Other OS option, Sony saw no reason to keep the Other OS option enabled, so it pulled it. Not saying this is the sole reason for pulling this option though. I'm sure someone from the EU will have more information on this.

In hindsight disabling the other OS options in fear of piracy basically blew up in their face. I don't condone piracy at all, but I wonder if Sony's best bet now is to embrace the PS3 as an "open Computer." Charge royalties for official software but also foster a "ground up" homebrew community ala Indie Games and the like, but more general PC oriented. I think this may be their, and MS's, biggest mistake: not leveraging the vast resources, skill, and ingenuity of the homebrew crowd.

Looks like Sony will have to start using the 'ol banhammer just like MS does. This really has me convinced that Sony and MS are going to be moving to a console configuration that is going to require an internet connection to run the game (if not continuously, at least at start-up, but continuous is more likely). When it happens, I don't want to hear a lot of whining and moaning about how much DRM sucks as this upcoming wound will be self-inflicted.

Looks like Sony will have to start using the 'ol banhammer just like MS does. This really has me convinced that Sony and MS are going to be moving to a console configuration that is going to require an internet connection to run the game (if not continuously, at least at start-up, but continuous is more likely). When it happens, I don't want to hear a lot of whining and moaning about how much DRM sucks as this upcoming wound will be self-inflicted.

Self-inflicted?

You do realize that if Sony or MS goes down that route then it will only impact those who do not pirate right? That sort of security will be cracked by the pirates like always. It won't change anything except increase expenses on Sony's and MS's part due to the development of that security as well as increase how much they annoy their honest paying customers.

They pretty much have "always online" consoles now anyways which allow them to ban as they see fit. Yes, the pirates can opt to stick with offline only, but when it comes to consoles that often means buying and additional "offline" box which means more money for Sony and MS.

Back on topic...as a hardware developer who designs USB devices, I find this exploit fascinating.

I think a lot of the folks who bought those Teensy's are going to find that this process is a lot harder than they think. Much harder than "oh I'll just download it to my thumb drive and hack my PS3 that way". I knew it would be harder than that. I was reasonably sure they were playing dirty tricks during enumeration.

I hope the dirty pirates break their PS3s. It is sad, however, that the rather minuscule group of folks who actually want to do homebrew are getting screwed because some idiots don't want to pay for games. This is why we can't have nice things.

Looks like Sony will have to start using the 'ol banhammer just like MS does.

What are they going to ban? PSN accounts are free. Bricking consoles for valid use of the platform could get them into major hot water. I guess they could block the console ID from PSN. But this is more meaningful on XBL as everything is tied to your Live account.

Looks like Sony will have to start using the 'ol banhammer just like MS does. This really has me convinced that Sony and MS are going to be moving to a console configuration that is going to require an internet connection to run the game (if not continuously, at least at start-up, but continuous is more likely). When it happens, I don't want to hear a lot of whining and moaning about how much DRM sucks as this upcoming wound will be self-inflicted.

Self-inflicted?

You do realize that if Sony or MS goes down that route then it will only impact those who do not pirate right? That sort of security will be cracked by the pirates like always. It won't change anything except increase expenses on Sony's and MS's part due to the development of that security as well as increase how much they annoy their honest paying customers.

They pretty much have "always online" consoles now anyways which allow them to ban as they see fit. Yes, the pirates can opt to stick with offline only, but when it comes to consoles that often means buying and additional "offline" box which means more money for Sony and MS.

And once again pirates miss the point once again.

Entertainment companies are not going after the determined pirates they are going after the non tech savvy idiots that require hand holding..

When it happens, I don't want to hear a lot of whining and moaning about how much DRM sucks as this upcoming wound will be self-inflicted.

Oh, they'll whine like you wouldn't believe when scores of gamers tell them to take a hike and don't buy the systems or games.

or you know, they can just hack that too and then YOU'RE the one stuck with a system that has to check online all the time. what happens when your internet goes down? that's your problem for sucking so much corporate wang i suppose.

DeadCat wrote:

I think a lot of the folks who bought those Teensy's are going to find that this process is a lot harder than they think. Much harder than "oh I'll just download it to my thumb drive and hack my PS3 that way". I knew it would be harder than that. I was reasonably sure they were playing dirty tricks during enumeration.

oh yes. soooo hard. it took me all of 10 minutes to figure out (see my post above where i ask how).1) buy a teensy ++2) download the loader from: http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/loader.html3) flash the teensy with the compiled code; multiple versions available; posted by martenbroadclk on the ps3news forums4) done.

.....I hope the dirty pirates break their PS3s. It is sad, however, that the rather minuscule group of folks who actually want to do homebrew are getting screwed because some idiots don't want to pay for games. This is why we can't have nice things.

You said it yourself, "some" idiots. A small portion of people are being idiots and the rest of us can't have nice things? Sony is the asshole here. How about not screwing over most of us because a small portion of people are jerks? We don't ban knives because serial killers use them to kill all through history.

In hindsight disabling the other OS options in fear of piracy basically blew up in their face. I don't condone piracy at all, but I wonder if Sony's best bet now is to embrace the PS3 as an "open Computer." Charge royalties for official software but also foster a "ground up" homebrew community ala Indie Games and the like, but more general PC oriented. I think this may be their, and MS's, biggest mistake: not leveraging the vast resources, skill, and ingenuity of the homebrew crowd.

To what end? What would Sony stand to gain? They barely break even on the hardware (at best), and an independent market wouldn't offer them any additional revenue.

oh yes. soooo hard. it took me all of 10 minutes to figure out (see my post above where i ask how).1) buy a teensy ++2) download the loader from: http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/loader.html3) flash the teensy with the compiled code; multiple versions available; posted by martenbroadclk on the ps3news forums4) done.

man, i don't know how people are going to manage that.

Hm...if you re-read my sentence, you'll see that I said "much harder than downloading something to your flash drive". It helps to address someone's argument when trying to rebut it.

How easy is step 1 right now? If you don't have a Teensy already, then you gotta break out a soldering iron, or do some research to go find a good replacement. This is not easy as easy as downloading to a thumb drive.

How easy is step 3 right now? Multiple versions makes things harder. Do you have the right version for your system? If you use the wrong version, can you brick? This is not easy as easy as downloading to a thumb drive.

The Wii (til 4.3) was the easiest thing in the world to hack. Literally download software to SD card, insert into Wii, one click...done. THAT is the kind of easy that I knew this PS3 hack was never going to be.

Zeroedout wrote:

You said it yourself, "some" idiots. A small portion of people are being idiots and the rest of us can't have nice things? Sony is the asshole here. How about not screwing over most of us because a small portion of people are jerks? We don't ban knives because serial killers use them to kill all through history.

Let's not kid ourselves. Piracy is not a "small portion" of this device...the primary purpose of this tool is to play downloaded games. The ability to write homebrew is a side effect, and we are the "small portion" who is screwed over by the larger demographic.

Knives are not designed for killing people. They're designed for cutting steak and spreading butter. Weapons of mass destruction are designed for killing people, and they *are* banned. Ask yourself, seriously, why was this designed?

It's not right. I don't like it. But the vast majority of people are not like me, with an academic interest in the hardware and a desire to write some homebrew apps.

What's the fascination with homebrewing on a console for the general user? Handheld holds some water IMO, but you can develop whatever you want on a PC and hook it up to your fancy home theater system with much more versatility as well.

In hindsight disabling the other OS options in fear of piracy basically blew up in their face. I don't condone piracy at all, but I wonder if Sony's best bet now is to embrace the PS3 as an "open Computer." Charge royalties for official software but also foster a "ground up" homebrew community ala Indie Games and the like, but more general PC oriented. I think this may be their, and MS's, biggest mistake: not leveraging the vast resources, skill, and ingenuity of the homebrew crowd.

To what end? What would Sony stand to gain? They barely break even on the hardware (at best), and an independent market wouldn't offer them any additional revenue.

So you don't think allowing indie developers to create content for their system that Sony could then distribute over the PSN could offer additional revenue? Does Steam or Apple's appstore not come to mind here? Guess you didn't think this one through or is there a flaw in my thinking?

One thing I am curious about is how people would have a cracked system and be able to continue using the PSN (might have been mentioned but don't have time to read all of the comments).

Oh and lol at AdamM's blanket statement about pirates missing the point...